


Finders Keepers

by marzipan (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, Love Spell, M/M, Magic AU, Not Fridgecroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-20 11:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16136468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/marzipan
Summary: @free-floating-mushroom had the idea that: Mycroft is some supernatural creature who keeps his heart in the freezer so as to keep from contracting ~emotions~, so naturally Jim has to steal it





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BorrowedSilence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BorrowedSilence/gifts).



Jim Moriarty thought it his duty to check up on the Holmeses every now and then. It was due diligence. It was part of the job. It was, if you really thought about it, the kind of checks and balances necessary in the free world.

 

And by checking up, of course he meant entering their homes while they weren't there. Just so he could get an honest assessment free from external interference. Of course.

 

And by assessment he meant things like sleeping in Sherlock’s bed (he certainly wasn’t using it, it’d been 72 hours and he’d yet to crack Jim’s code, ha) and rifling through John’s toys (living room was always a mess) and eating what little food Mycroft had left in the fridge (there’s rarely anything left in the fridge. Maybe he _is_ a vampire - jury’s still out on that one).

 

So it was on one of these little audits where he found a funny lump in Mycroft’s freezer.

 

“Hm.”

 

Jim had checked the refrigeration portion only to find, predictably, nothing but two bottles of water (once, just once, there had been a lovely lemon mousse cake from a new patisserie in a takeaway box. which, of course, he ate all of). The freezer though - usually there was only a bag of peas, but today there was a lumpy blob thing hidden underneath it.

 

Jim lifted the peas and found a round, foil-wrapped object about the size of his fist. He picked it up, and picked at the foil until he could unwrap it far enough to see what was inside.

 

“Ew.”

 

Had Sherlock taken to storing body parts in his brother’s house? Quite a long way from 221B. Was this frozen organ some kind of experiment? Was Mycroft growing humans in his kitchen? Was he actually a vampire?

 

Jim gave it a lick. Grimaced.

 

“Well, finders keepers,” he sang, pocketing the lump. Whoever had gone through the trouble of hiding it in such an obscure place certainly didn’t want it taken. So, naturally, Jim was going to take it.

 

.

 

.

 

On Mycroft Holmes’s 35th birthday, he offended a witch.

 

In his defense, Mycroft thought, she had been disguised, and had been asking some very stupid questions.

 

Outside of his office, going down the hall, and wrapping around the corner was a long, long line of bright, mostly young candidates interviewing for the coveted but tasking position of his personal assistant (the previous one had been hospitalized. Ulcers, or something).

 

The first ten to enter his office had promptly been sent out again (he had to. One of them didn’t even know where the capital of _Tunisia_ was).

 

By the second dozen, Mycroft was anguishing over the state of education in his beloved country. He got up with the intention of taking a walk to clear his head of the inanity the applicants had brought in with them and ended up nearly running into one of them - or perhaps an intern - around the corner.

 

“Oh! You nearly ran me over there. I’m a little lost, do you know where the restrooms are?”

 

Mycroft glared at the blonde 20-something.

 

“Just because it is a _government building_ does _not_ mean we have _public_ bathrooms, miss,” he snapped.

 

She opened her mouth, but before she could respond, Mycroft interrupted.

 

“Kindly go back out the way you came, else I _will_ have security remove you from the premises,” he added.  

 

Her eyes went wide and for a moment, he thought he was going to have to deal with - God forbid - _tears_. But then instead, her image warped, the young woman momentarily becoming an ageless looking brunette, and old woman, a redheaded child, then back again. A voice that sounded as if it came from another realm echoed as she spoke.

 

“One of these days, someone’s going to get their hands on your heart, Mycroft Holmes, and then that’ll be the end of you and your icy facade, sir,” she spat.

 

And then she disappeared.

 

Right before his eyes.

 

.

 

Mycroft ended up hiring a young woman named Andrea, who didn’t spoke precisely or not at all, and looked as if nothing could surprise her.

 

.

 

That night, rattled by the stress of incessant interviews and foreboding curses, Mycroft could not sleep.

 

At first, he blamed the scotch. But then, at 11:13 p.m., the phone rang.

 

“Myke, dear, happy birthday,” his mother crooned from the other end of the line.

 

Mycroft frowned.

 

“Hell, Mummy. At least use the name you had penned down on my birth certificate on this of all days,” he said.

 

“Anyway, it’s finally 11:16, which means you’re 35, and I can tell you the family secret,” she went on.

 

“The what? It’s 11:13,” he said.

 

“Oh! Is it? I’ll call you back.”

 

She hung up.

 

Mycroft stared at the phone in apprehension for the next three minutes. Family secret?! Good Lord.

 

He only hoped his mother was just drunk.

 

.

 

Three minutes later, Mycroft picked up the phone as it lit up, before it’d even gotten a chance to ring.

 

“Mummy,” he greeted curtly.

 

“Mykie, dear, happy birthday!”

 

“Yes, yes, please get on with it.” In the past three minutes, he’d gone through a montage of horrors from yet another secret prison he’d have to take over to a mountain of debt or, worse, that his hand in marriage had been promised to some French family or something equally awful to settle an age-old feud between two families. If she waited any longer to tell him, he’d spontaneously combust. From stress.

 

“Well, oh, I don’t know how to say this, I wish I could get your father to explain. He’s so much better with breaking down the technical terms into la-”

 

“ _Please_ , Mummy, just - just out with it!”

 

“Oh, alright. Mykie, there is magic in this world.”

 

That wasn’t going where he thought it would, but.

 

“Uh-huh,” he said skeptically, pacing a hole into the kitchen floor. Dammit, he should have caved and bought that cake.

 

“There are, oh, how do I say this, witches in this world.”

 

“...uh-huh.”

 

“And faerie.”

 

“Mummy, have you been celebrating a bit too much, perhaps?”

 

“Mykie, please, I’m trying to divulge some very important information! There are entire communities of magic people, courts - that’s what they call them. And if you trace our family back far enough, you’ll see we are members of the Ice Queen’s court.”

 

Mycroft pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. No, that was definitely his mother’s number.

 

“Mykie, are you there?”

 

“Yes, yes.”

 

“Now, we’re so far from the original bloodline, as most families are these days, that there’s barely any magic left. But certain members of the family, like firstborns - in this case, you - are more susceptible to magic.”

 

“ _Susceptible?”_

 

“Yes, we’re loosely related to the ice animatrons of the court, meaning surgery’s no hardship,” she said with a laugh. “Perhaps that accounts for a vanity, oh dear.”

 

“Mummy, speak English.”

 

“But yes, it does mean that if a stronger witch or faerie should wish to cast a spell or curse, it’s much more likely to take effect on you than, say, dear Sherlock.”

 

Mycroft stopped pacing stared ahead with dead eyes. Figures.

 

“Lovely.”

 

“Yes, well, I think that is all. Happy birthday, dear, I’m going to turn in.”

 

And she hung up.

 

Immediately, the events of the past day ran through Mycroft’s head, stopping abruptly on the moment where he’d snapped at the young blonde woman, who then blurred into the visage of a million people, and cursed him.

 

 _Cursed him_.

 

No, Mummy’s silly warning had to be just a joke.

 

_Someone’s going to get their hands on your heart, Mycroft Holmes_

 

His hand rose up to his chest.

 

_melt that icy facade_

 

If they really were linked to the Ice Court - well. He could melt, couldn’t he?

 

What a way to die. As a puddle.

 

He looked down at his hands, turning them this way and that. They were admirably steady for how much his mind was reeling, he mused. He let his right hand cover his heart, and then, thinking vaguely of what his mother had said _animatrons_ he pushed.

 

And his hand

 

sank into his chest

 

and he pulled his heart out.

 

“ _Bloody hell.”_

 

And there he stood for a good twenty minutes.

 

Frozen in place, heart in hand.

 

“ _Oh dear God._ ”

Finally, he stumbled forward one step at a time, and opened the freezer.

 

_Ice, was it?_

 

He needed somewhere cold. Somewhere freezing.

 

 _There_.

 

_Under the...peas? It was all he had._

 

Gingerly, Mycroft set the thing in hand - the _heart - his_ heart - inside the freezer.

 

No, no, he couldn’t just _leave_ it there.

 

He flung open a drawer and pulled out some heavy duty aluminium foil (where had he gotten that?) and wrapped the heart. _His_ heart. And put it away.

 

He closed the freezer door.

 

He needed to sit. Turning around, Mycroft remembered there was no chair. No matter. He sank, the strength suddenly going out from his legs, heavily against the island, onto the floor.

 

 _What the fuck_.

 

.

 

The first week, Mycroft kept his heart in the freezer out of fear. If he tried, could he put it back in his chest? Probably.

 

Did he want to perform open chest surgery on himself for a second time? No. Not at all.

 

He was torn, every night, between checking to make sure the horrible lump was still there, and trying to put the entire situation out of his mind.

 

He considered, briefly, calling his mother for advice, but then when had she ever given sound advice? It was her fault he’d gotten into this mess in the first place.

 

And then there was the assassination attempt.

 

.

 

It wasn’t an assassination attempt on Mycroft’s life. Few people knew both what he looked like and what role he played in the British government.

 

No, it started two weeks before the botched assassination, on his way home.

 

Now, Mycroft was not one to normally stray into dark alleys, but the cab driver had misheard his instructions several times, and ended up dropping him off one block away from his destination for a dinner meeting.

 

One block couldn’t hurt, he mistakenly thought, letting his brother’s voice in the back of his head goad him into ‘exercise.’

 

He’d barely gotten ten steps before he was slammed up against a wall by a would-be mugger brandishing a shiv of some sort. It was all ‘give me your wallet’, ‘you scream and I’ll cut ya’, blah blah blah - but before Mycroft could do or say anything, a woman passing by spotted the two, and screamed.

 

“The homosexuals, Howard!”

 

In his panic, the would-be mugger jammed his makeshift knife straight up - straight up into Mycroft’s chest, through his ribs, and into where his heart should have been.

 

And nothing happened.

 

The woman’s husband ushered her away saying she’d had too much to drink, the mugger dropped his weapon and ran off, and Mycroft was left standing alone against a stone wall, looking down at a what should have been a mortal wound but really wasn’t at all.

 

The knife was in his hand, and there wasn’t even a hole in his suit.

 

The man had aimed for his heart, but because his heart was protected, safely stored away, _nothing had happened_.

 

Maybe this magic thing wasn’t so bad after all.

 

.

 

So two weeks later, as Mycroft was riding in the same motorcade as the Prime Minister, the near-death experience made him do something quite unlike him.

 

As they walked from the cars up to the building, Mycroft had the sense that something wasn’t right. A chilly breeze prompted him to look up - _was that magic too? -_ and there, a glint in the window of a commercial building -

 

A sniper.

 

Several thoughts went through Mycroft’s mind at once: fixing the elections the first time to get this man elected had taken _countless_ sleepless nights, he was about to be shot and likely killed, and Mycroft himself, if he aimed this right, could not be killed.

 

He had but a moment to make the decision, but that was enough. Mycroft turned, placing himself between the shooter and the Prime Minister, and the bullet went straight through the space where his heart should have been.

 

_Fwip._

 

Mycroft was flung backwards as if he really had been shot - and then it was a whirl of people, shouting, chaos.

 

He felt blindly up his own chest. No blood. No wound. Likely not even a bruise, really.

 

He turned to look behind him - bodyguards had swept the Prime Minister away. They were safe.

 

“You’re lucky, sir.” He looked up - Andrea. Anthea? Her face was pinched with worry. “It just missed your heart.”

 

.

 

That night, Mycroft checked in on the heart in his freezer with renewed awe. Still there, still safe.

 

He checked the next night as well: still there, still safe.

 

As it was the next night, and the next.

 

Until it wasn’t.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Mycroft woke up feeling warm and pleasant, the sheer panic he experienced the night before a thing of the far past, remembered only in sepia tones whereas the world before him bloomed beneath a rose-colored tint.

 

Mycroft Holmes was in love.

 

He tried to go through the routine of the day, he really tried. But nothing could prevent the spring in his step and the song in his voice as he got ready and headed out to work, not the dreary weather, not even morning traffic.

 

He sat through morning budget meetings with a dreamy smile on his face, only half listening, until his personal assistant pulled him aside a quarter past ten and asked, in urgent, hushed tones, what the _hell_ was the matter with him. He’d taken no notes - not that he usually did, what with his stellar memory. But in lieu of notes he had a notepad filled with doodled hearts.

 

“Andrea,” he said with a happy sigh. “A positively criminal act was committed last night.”

 

“Criminal? I’m sure we have it on record…”

 

“No, no, I mean that my house was broken into.”

 

“Sir, I had no idea. Are you alright?”

 

“Hm? Oh, yes, yes. No matter. You see, my heart has been stolen,” Mycroft mused, looking out the window. He spotted a young couple ducking under an awning for shelter from the abrupt rain, him draping his coat over her head. Mycroft smiled, and his assistant gave him a horrified look.

 

“Isn’t that lovely?”

 

“What, the park?”

 

He turned to her, expression determined.

 

“I have to go,” he said.

 

“What?” Anthea looked startled.

 

“I need to follow my heart.”

 

“Sir. Sir!” she called after him. “There’s still another two hours left of the meeting!”

 

.

 

.

 

The door opened and Jim reached for the gun hidden in the heated pizza bag. He’d been disguised as a pizza delivery man sitting inside the unused break room of a corporate building owned and inhabited by a company in the process of going under and finishing layoffs, and by all predictions and calculations, no one should be looking for him here.

 

Likely a newly-fired employee looking for a space to cry, Jim thought, no need to blow his cover.

 

Except he looked up and came face to face with Mycroft Holmes, and paled.

 

“Jim!” A smile broadened across his face as he approached, arms open.

 

Jim shot a panicked look at his laptop - he’d been in the middle of remote correspondence with a pair of disgruntled Saudi princes set on turning against their father. It was all encrypted - but, ugh. He shut the top of computer down, inching back just in time to avoid a hug (hug?????).

 

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Mycroft murmured, settling for taking a seat beside him at the cheap, plastic office kitchenette table.

 

Jim scanned the man head to toe, trying to figure out his play. He looked - comfortable. He had this warm, happy glow about him, his pupils were dilated, oh dear, had someone managed to drug Mycroft Holmes?

 

“What do you want?” Jim sighed, resigned. If he played this right, he could get out of the situation unscathed.

 

Instead of terms, Mycroft just leaned his face into a hand and looked dreamily at him from beneath his lashes.

 

“You,” he said.

 

Jim stared.

 

Then he laughed.

 

“Alright, good one. You got the drop on me, _for once_ , are you happy now? Mycroft Holmes can do undercover too. Big whoops. What do you want, an award?”

 

He takes Jim’s hand gently, running his thumb over the knuckles.

 

“Are you offering?”

 

Jim ripped his hand back, scowling.

 

“Enough games,” he said. His phone blinked to life with a text message, interrupting whatever barbed words he was going to throw at Mycroft.

 

**_Tigs_ **

_You kidnapped the British govt????_

 

**_Me_ **

_No! He kidnapped himself!_

 

**_Tigs_ **

_Kidnapped himself??? wTF does that mean_

 

**_Me_ **

_UGH_

 

Jim glared at Mycroft.

 

“People are looking for you,” he said, more a statement than a question. He’d been racking his brain for a likely reason before letting out a frustrated huff. “I haven’t even gotten into any of your business lately. And I’ve kept Sherlock off drugs! Nothing he’s come across was _unsolvable_ , what the hell do you want from me?”

 

Mycroft’s dreamy look didn’t change.

 

“Your love,” he answered easily.

 

“What.”

 

Mycroft smiled, looking down bashfully. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind a kiss. Or a date. Oh, I’d love to take you out-”

 

_THERE IT WAS._

 

“-we could go to a show.”

 

_?????_

 

“But I can see you’re busy with work,” Mycroft continued. “I don’t mind waiting.”

 

He settled back into his seat, turning the chair so he could get a better view of Jim’s face without craning his body around.

 

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I just want to be near you.”

 

“You...don’t _mind?”_ Jim asked, incredulous, staring at Mycroft like he’d lost his mind.

 

“You don’t _mind_ that I’m taking international oil prices for a spin because of two squabbling brothers?” he asked, voice increasingly taking on an edge of manicness.

 

Mycroft just shrugged.

 

“Whatever makes you happy, dear, makes me happy.”

 

Jim stared. For a long moment. Was this karmic retribution for jerking off to the thought of Mycroft Holmes getting spanked by his hot assistant because that didn’t really seem fair.

 

“Right.”

 

He inched his chair away, formulating a plan to get out of the room toward freedom.

 

Mycroft inched his chair a tad closer.

 

“So,” Jim said loudly. “If I said it’d make me happy if you were to move the Prime Minister’s press conference up to the 14th…”

 

“Done.”

 

“With _out_ changing the routes, so that traffic is still deferred…?”

 

“Anything you wish.”

 

Jim stared, eye twitching just minutely. His eyes dropped to Mycroft’s pocket, where his phone supposedly was.

 

“Well then, go on. Do it.”

 

He bore down, willing himself not to flinch as Mycroft reached into his pocket, and grappled internally to keep a straight face as the man made a call.

 

“Yes, I am _sure_. Move the press conference. Same route. Thank you.”

 

All that mental preparation didn’t help him prevent his jaw dropping. Jim has to close it with his hand, feigning running a palm across his chin was he did. Mycroft smiled at him expectantly, and Jim cleared his throat.

 

“Yes, good. Um. Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

 

The gears were fast spinning in his head. He could work with this. Whatever Mycroft had been dosed with certainly made him susceptible, and all he needed to do was get away before it wore off. Jim could work with this. He gave Mycroft a nervous smile dressed up in charm.

 

Mycroft returned it with an unsettlingly air of besottedness.

 

“You know what,” Jim said, slamming his hands on the table as if he’d just had a delightful idea and not because he was having an internal meltdown. “We should have dinner.”

 

Mycroft brightened at that, so Jim pressed on.

 

“Why don’t you make us reservations. Text me! I’ll meet you there.”

 

Then he jumped up out of his seat and ran out the door.

 

.

 

Jim felt exhausted in a way that was far from satisfying when he finally made it back to the flat he was staying it. It wasn’t big, but it was perfectly situated for quick dropbys in London.

 

He sighed as he finally bypassed security and got the door open. What a _long_ day of staying even further under the radar than usual, hiding from, ugh, Mycroft Holmes. You’d have to be an idiot not to be at least a _little_ bit scared of Mycroft Holmes.

 

Then the smell hit him.

 

Jim sharpened immediately, hand on his gun as he contemplated reaching for the light. Too late. It turned on for him, further illuminating the hallway leading into an occupied living room.

 

“Jim.”

 

Jim flailed, then caught himself against the wall, gingerly stepping into the living room.

 

It was filled with candles.

 

It’d been redecorated.

 

And sitting at the dining table (the place didn’t _have_ a formal dining room, but Mycroft had apparently turned the place into one. Jesus, was that furniture new? Did he have stuff _delivered?_ Jim was going to have to move ASAP).

 

While Jim was standing dumbfounded in hallway, Mycroft had come up behind him to take his coat and usher him into a seat. He vaguely registered the man lifting the plate covers and - did he just _kiss_ his temple? - place a napkin over his lap.

 

“I figured you’d want a quiet night in after a long day of work, so I borrowed the chef at the Ritz. Don’t worry, he was blindfolded and wore silencing headphones on the way over, and he’s already been sent along on his way. No one will be bother us during dinner.”

 

_WHY DID THAT SOUND SO OMINOUS?_

 

Had Jim finally gone too far? Was Mycroft Holmes going to murder him in cold blood, here, with his own bare hands?

 

Jim furrowed his brows. It was all so _bizarre_ , and it was impossible to get a read on the man.

 

He forced his rigid body to move, and pick up a fork. Stab a vegetable, he told himself, aim for your mouth, you know where it is.

 

“Um. The food’s good,” he said mechanically.

 

And that just made Mycroft _blush_.

 

Jim resigned himself to the momentary weirdness and started shoveling food in his mouth. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t watch Mycroft go all swoony in front of him and try to figure him out.

 

He peered up again hoping for the joke to somehow be over, but the man was, if anything, staring at him with even more heartfelt emotion than he had before.

 

“What?” Jim asked, defensive.

 

“From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew I was gone for,” Mycroft sighed, topping off their wine glasses. “Not just your brilliance; you understand power the way few men understand power. Jim Moriarty, you could bring a nation to its knees, and it was only a matter of time before I fell for you.”

 

Jim looked around the room for cameras.

 

“Add to that the way you move, the way you dress - it was only a matter of time before you captured my heart-”

 

The _heart._

 

Was that what this was about, that’s what he was here for?

 

Mycroft looked straight at him.

 

“Jim Moriarty, I have fallen in love with you.”

 

 _Shit_ , he wasn’t kidding. Jim stared back. Mycroft Holmes was, at the very least presently, being completely honest.

 

 _It’s real_.

 

The _heart_ was real.

 

I have Mycroft Holmes’s heart, he thought.

 

.

 

Dinner was - manageable enough.

 

Jim managed to keep Mycroft from making too many declarations of love, and then managed to keep the goodbye at the door relatively short.

 

Mycroft looked smitten, fixated on his mouth. It was clear he wanted to kiss him, but wasn’t going to press for it. The man tried to linger, and Jim practically shoved him out the door.

 

“Thanks for dinner _goodbyeee_.”

 

Then, as soon as the door slams shut, Jim dives for his duffle bag, packing frantically. There were probably bugs _all over the place, goddammit_.

 

The phone rang just as he thought that, and Jim froze. So he _was_ being watched.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Goodnight, my love. I just - I miss you already.”

 

Jim hung up and threw the phone into the sink, bolting for the garbage disposal switch. He could live without the rest of the things. He was getting the hell outta dodge.

 

.

 

Jim probably shouldn’t have made it so difficult for Mycroft Holmes to contact him, because two days later, the man crashed a business meeting.

 

“Darling, I’ve been looking all over for you,” he called out, sauntering into a warehouse with Russian mobsters on one side and the unions on the other. Jim was assuming a pseudonym to do business here, as well as gather intel, and this overgrown _encyclopedia_ was about to blow the whole thing.

 

He came straight up to Jim, tucking himself against his side, with no concern for the men with the _very big guns_.

 

“And who’s this fucker?” Sergei said, pointing with his semi-automatic.

 

Jim sighed, long-suffering, and wrapped his arm around Mycroft’s waist.

 

“Just my assistant. You know how it goes,” he said opaquely, as if whatever he was saying should be obvious. Let them assume an affair, and that Mycroft was a nobody, and maybe they’d all get out of this alive. Goddammit, this is why he tried to stay out of things as much as possible. (But it was just _so boring_ sitting behind screens all day sometimes.) He waved at his men to bring over the money, hoping to wrap things up as quickly as possible.

 

The sooner they left, the better.

 

Mycroft nuzzled his cheek against his face.

 

“I was looking _all over_ the city for you,” he said. “You moved!”

 

“Yes. Yes I did,” Jim hissed under his breath through gritted teeth.

 

“I saw the building is about to be demolished; they’re building a mall and a carpark or something ghastly like that in its place. Neighborhood’s gone downhill anyway. Have you got somewhere to stay? You could move in with me,” Mycroft offered.

 

“Noooo, thank you.”

 

A huff. “Very well. It’s an open offer though.”

 

Jim gave the mobsters and union reps a steely smile as they parted ways, trying to squirm away from Mycroft’s suction-like hold without causing notice.

 

“Finally! They’re gone, and I have you all to myself,” Mycroft purred happily.

 

Why did that _still_ sound so ominous?!

 

“Uh-huh, and what does that mean?” Jim asked.

 

Mycroft blinked.

 

“Oh well you know what, I’ve spent so long looking for you that I hadn’t thought that far!” He smiled. “I just wanted to be _near_ you. We can do whatever you’d like.”

 

His arms came up loosely around Jim’s neck, his thumb stroking the nape of his neck slowly.

 

“I still haven’t gotten to take you out. Though I hear you’re not one for dating, not traditionally anyway. Not enough excitement, maybe? We could role-play, if that’s more your style. Ooh, you could take me right here if you’d like. Or do you prefer having someone else in charge?”

 

Mycroft’s weight had been increasingly pressed against him until the two of them threatened to topple over onto the table.

 

“HOLMES, CONTAIN YOURSELF,” Jim practically shrieked.

 

“Oh, please, call my Mycroft.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jim pulled off his sunglasses with great effort. Finally, he was on a private jet headed somewhere warm and tropical where there would be no shortage of beautiful people to serve him colorful drinks.

 

He turned his head to the side, and Mycroft Holmes smiled back at him.

 

Jim returned the smile weakly. He’d been running for a week. The man had cost him more money than Sherlock had over the years  _ combined _ in just the past three days and he wasn’t even having fun. 

 

He’d had his name written up in smoke in the sky, and had to scramble to get balloons and helis up to blow them away. He couldn’t just have his location given out like that. He’d been in danger of becoming a national  _ joke _ underground.

 

Then he came home to his second flat and found it full of roses. Literally filled to the brim. Had the man never heard of going overboard?

 

Perhaps Jim’s stance on grand gestures was made clear by his lack of response (and his packing up and moving the next day, selling the building). Mycroft had sent only a gift basket the following day. To his  _ workplace _ . While he was  _ undercover _ . It came with a giant stuffed seal that smiled like it was the embodiment of world peace, and Jim had had to jam it down the trash chute.

 

All thought that this odd behavior would wear off after the first day was clearly mistaken. He’d just have to go along for the ride then.

 

Mycroft rifled through the travel documents Jim had sticking out of his leather carry-on.

 

“Oh, Barbados - you should’ve told me, I know someone who’s invested greatly in the hospitality industry there,” Mycroft said. “I’ll give him a call once we land. 

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

“I’m so glad you’re taking a vacation,” Mycroft said. “You’ve been looking a bit stressed lately.”

 

Jim gave him a funny look.

 

“Don’t you have a country to run?” he asked. 

 

“Don’t be silly,” Mycroft said, waving it off. “Anthea’s got it under control.”

 

.

 

Eight hours was a long time, and it gave Jim time to think. If the British Government was going to continue to be besotted with him, it was Jim’s duty, his God-given right, to make use of that resource.

 

“Mycroft,” Jim said, as the plane began to descend.

 

“Hm?” Mycroft had curled up against him, his head pillowed on Jim’s chest, with Jim playing with his hair in some semblance of a cartoon villain petting his diabolical cat. 

 

“If I wanted to break into the Tower of London…”

 

Mycroft peered up at him.

 

“What for? There’s not much of value in there. It’s a tourist site.”

 

“For  _ bragging rights _ ,” Jim said, exasperated. He rolled his eyes.

 

“Well, I suppose I could arrange something.”

 

Jim considered the implications, and then put an abrupt stop to that. No, Mycroft’s interference would take all the  _ fun _ out of it. 

 

That  _ help _ he’d given him with moving the Prime Minister’s conference for distraction still left a sour taste. He was good enough at what he did that he didn’t need the extra help. He could cheat without being given that stupid advantage. 

 

Mycroft was meant to play the other side; Jim missed seeing him bristle when he did something  _ particularly _ mad. 

 

“What if I didn’t want you to?” he asked.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Well now you know I’m going to break in, but I don’t want you to do anything about it.”

 

Mycroft blinked.

 

“Seems easy enough.”

 

“I’d still be arrested after?”

 

“Well, only if you got  _ caught _ . Seems a bit silly to tell me not to let you get away and then not to catch you either, and then still get  _ caught _ .”

 

“Well what if that was  _ my plan _ , to get arrested?”

 

“Do you want me to arrest you, Jim?” he asked without innuendo. God this was so weird.

 

“Nevermind.” Jim sighed. The plane was landing. He couldn’t even have  _ fun _ with all the resources of the British Government at his disposal. This was the worst. He had to get that heart out of the storage unit freezer and toss it into the Atlantic, or something.

 

.

 

Beachside lounging wasn’t so bad. The two of them had a balcony overlooking the bright blue waters and private stretch of sand.

 

Mycroft was practically dozing, post-massage, lying on his stomach, while Jim sat back in his bathrobe and tapped away on his tablet.

 

Jim snuck a glance. Mycroft was weird. So he’d be amenable to kinky sex even if he wasn’t mind-bogglingly lovestruck, wouldn’t he? Or, no, what if they did, and that just made him more clingy? Hm. Moral dilemmas were not Jim’s strong suit.

 

“Mm, don’t you ever stop working?”

 

Jim rolled his eyes. This new Mycroft had no work ethic. 

 

“Well these crimes aren’t going to plan themselves,” he muttered. “There’s a couple at this resort - he’s running the hedge fund but she’s the one who holds all the accounts, and their marriage is on the rocks. Like bash-his-head-in-and-run-away-with-the-cabana-boy on the rocks. Only they don’t know it yet.”

 

“Mmph.”

 

“I’ve convinced the partner to let me help, ehm, offload their burden, pre-divorce settlings. So he’d make more now than later.”

 

Mycroft cracked an eye open.

 

“Why don’t you just pit them against each other? And running to the partner for help?” he said, trailing off with a yawn. 

 

Jim looked up.

 

That...actually wasn’t half bad. It’d cause  _ loads _ of grief. In half the time.

 

.

 

“Mycroft,” Jim said, as he floated from one end of the pool to the other on a large inflatable shaped and colored like a slice of pizza. The pitting-the-spouses-against-each-other thing had gone well. Quite well. And they’d be on a flight out before it all blew up. 

 

“Yes, dear?”

 

“There’s an auction going down in Morocco, highly guarded, lots of valuables, all that jazz.”

 

“I’m aware.”

 

“Want to go?”

 

.

 

Forty-eight hours later, one Colonel Sebastian Moran received an encrypted text that opened up to a photo of Jim Moriarty decked out in museum-quality jewelry throwing up gangster signs.

 

_ Ping! _

 

And then a second one, with both Jim and Mycroft so bedazzled they looked like Faberge eggs.

 

_ Ping! _

 

Sebastian sighed.

 

_ Ping! _

 

_ Ping! Ping! _

 

.

 

Jim turned back to look at Mycroft, who, leaning against the hotel bar in an off-white linen suit, affected a carelessness Jim had never associated with the man.

 

“Your Duchess may be a good mark,” Mycroft said, “but look over her shoulder at the lone brunette in her entourage. She might not seem like much but unlike her friends here she has  _ already _ inherited her family fortune.”

 

Jim narrowed his eyes. It wasn't like he made it his business to read royal family trees in his spare time.

 

“What are you suggesting?”

 

Mycroft lips curl up in an almost feline smile, what with the way his eyes crinkled when he did that. Jim wanted to poke at the lines, see if they were real.

 

“I suggest you watch,” he said, before he downed his drink and pushed off from the bar, diving straight into the throng of colorful heiresses.

 

.

 

Jim and Mycroft, arm in arm, stepped out of their private car into a private airport where they were to board a private jet. It was all awfully secure. 

 

And it had to be, seeing as they just scammed minor royalty from six countries out of practically all their inheritance.

 

“You’re  _ very _ good at telling people what they want to hear,” Jim said, still impressed. 

 

Mycroft took off his sunglasses. “Me?” he said, smiling regardless. “ _ You’re _ ruthless.”

 

Jim smiled, smug despite knowing he was being conned in the moment. 

 

“Only because it’s  _ so handy _ that you know who’s who at a glance,” he said.

 

It’s not much of a compliment, but Mycroft goes all gooey with it anyway. 

 

As they take their seats, it occurs to Jim that some time during the course of their cross-continent, trans-Mediterranean grifter spree, Mycroft being a clingy bastard has become considerably less annoying. 

 

Jim went quiet for a while, considering this, and Mycroft just watched him.

 

“When we get to Italy, we're headed in for a wedding,” Jim said, ignoring the hopeful look on Mycroft's face. The first time it'd been terrifying. Then it grew to be mildly disconcerting. Now Jim was rather fond of it. It somehow gave him the urge to - to buy Mycroft an island, or something. 

 

“It's not a real one, it'll be filled to the brim with mafia and peppered with undercover police. It was the only way they could get the Family all in one place at the same time.”

 

“So what's your part in all this? Ring bearer?”

 

“Rival house wants to take them all out, police and family and all.”

 

“Seems prudent. Then pin it on the third of the families, I suppose?”

 

Jim grins at him. 

 

.

 

Jim walked two fingers up Mycroft’s arm slowly, as Mycroft held still in front of the mirrors.

 

“I have the best ideas,” Jim said, congratulating himself as the tailor ducked under his arm to finish measuring Mycroft.

 

“I feel certain I’ve already got a tailor somewhere that has my measurements on file,” Mycroft mused.

 

“Yes, but we’re on vacation, and the man does a wonderful bespoke,” Jim shot back, ignoring the tailor’s wry smile.

 

Mycroft rolls his eyes. “Says the man who wears  _ Westwood _ .” 

 

Jim’s smile turned dangerous, and Mycroft’s turned fond as he watched him through the mirror. 

 

.

 

Jim sat on the leather couch, gun between his legs, as the man across from him, bloodied and bawling, begged for his life.

 

“Whisky or scotch?” Mycroft called from the bar.

 

Jim glanced over. 

 

“Actually, I’m feeling some vodka. Russian fare, hm? Like those passports you’ve been dealing.”

 

He looked back at the sniveling man - hilarious. He really thought he and Mycroft were random mob muscle? Did he think just any two hired guns could handle hacking military-level security like the system he had installed through his mansion? 

 

It’d been a slightly risky venture, and neither of them normally did this. But they’d been celebrating at a bar having just manipulated stock exchanges across the entirety of Europe.

 

A blabby investor seemed to be celebrating too, going on and on about it on the phone with someone they couldn’t identify, and Mycroft, sorry that Jim’s attention was being pulled elsewhere, leaned in and said, “well why don’t we just  _ ask him?” _

 

So here they were, asking for the identity of the investor’s confidant. It seemed someone else was pulling the financial strings on the continent, and Jim wanted a name. 

 

“It’s - it’s Ales Yurchenko. Yes, the tech prodigy - believe me, he looks like a child, but he’s behind more than you know.” The poor man finally broke, and Mycroft smiled at him from behind the bar.

 

.

 

Jim revved up the engine; they’d sped off with one of the investor’s custom race cars, and were planning to have it drive itself off a cliff. Why did billionaires always choose to build their spaceship-esque mansions in the woods on a hill? (The view, obviously.)

 

He snuck a look at Mycroft, who seemed to be biting back a smile, and quite unsuccessfully at that. Jim let out a laugh, and then Mycroft’s giggles spilled over, and then the two of them were full-out laughing, and Jim was grabbing Mycroft by the neck and kissing him full on the mouth. 

 

Mycroft managed to somehow simultaneously melt into the kiss and put a hand on the steering wheel, pulling it back where Jim had let it veer crazily out of line. 

 

They broke apart and Jim stared, emotions warring, their faces still close together.

 

“We - should get out of the car,” he finally said, clearing his throat. “Gotta push it over the edge.”

 

“Mm,” Mycroft nodded, leaning in to kiss him on the corner of his mouth once more, before opening the car door.

 

.

 

The sundrenched seaside hotel only added to the fantasy that his three-week trip with Mycroft has been one long vacation away from reality.

 

Mycroft squints out at the hotel opposite theirs, where several of the guest parties are hosted.

 

“If things are going down here, wouldn't it be prudent if we weren't close when it all… goes down?” 

 

Jim smiled, and took up Mycroft's arm as if leading him in a waltz. 

 

“That's the beauty of it, it'll blow when least expected. The police will think they've caught all the baddies, and then once they start to round them up, boom. I think if I've timed this right we might even have time for a dance at the reception.”

 

Mycroft smiled down at him, overly fond.

 

“No.”

 

Jim blinked. Did he hear wrong? Mycroft still looked that carefree way, certainly he couldn't be having a moral conundrum  _ now. _

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Mycroft set his hands on Jim’s shoulders.

 

“We are not going anywhere near a wedding meant to implode on its head. No, if it’s necessary we even be in the same city we can wait it out all from a good distance.” 

 

Mycroft fixed his cufflinks, and then Jim’s tie.

 

“Do order dinner for us, James, I think we shall stay in.”

 

Jim narrowed his eyes after him. This wasn’t just that Mycroftian brand of coddling protectiveness, no, this was something else. A bit pushy, and, and arrogant, and some of his megalomania was seeping through once again. 

 

Mycroft step out closing the door behind him, and then as Jim turned back around - he jumped - 

 

\- seeing Mycroft’s assistant (Andrea???) standing right before him.

 

“Tsk,” she said, folding her arms, leaning against the balcony railing.

 

“How the  _ fuck- _ ”

 

“Did I get in?” she asked, raising a hand and summoning a ball of flame, which turned into ice, which turned into light, water, and nothing again. “Magic.”

 

“What the  _ fuck _ .”

 

She gave him a sort of disdainful look, and normally Jim would threaten to have her eyes pecked out by birds of prey for this sort of thing but she had just done impossible things to nature and, frankly, his head was still spinning.

 

_ The heart. _

 

_ Shit. _

 

“Yes, the heart,” she said, prompting Jim to jump back and clap his hands over his ears. She couldn’t possibly read minds, no.

 

She rolled her eyes. Oh, the audacity.

 

“Mycroft’s been without his heart for three months now,” she said. “Well, nearly.”

 

“He’d been without it for a while even before you, you see,” she added.

 

“Well if you’re here to steal it, I haven’t got it on me,” Jim said, prickly now. And really, who did she think she was? Popping in here and shaking him down over a theft she didn’t have proof he committed?? 

 

Her expression turned serious.

 

“You care about Mycroft,” she said. Rather, asserted it. She definitely wasn’t asking. 

 

“Eh.” Jim waved his hand back and forth, and she ignored it.

 

“Well if you  _ do _ care about him, you’ll give back his heart.”

 

Jim twisted his mouth up, as if chewing the words up in consideration. 

 

“He may have ice in his veins - albeit a very small percentage - but he isn’t meant to go all mix-and-match with his organs for too long, especially not the major organs. Three months is nearly the limit of what he can stand without a piece of himself as vital as the  _ heart _ ,” Anthea said with a sigh. “If you don’t give it back to him, he  _ will _ become permanently heartless.”

 

Jim kept his expression carefully blank, but it didn’t matter. As soon as she’d finished speaking, she took one look at him, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

 

.

 

Jim weighed the pros and cons of returning Mycroft’s heart en route to Germany. The difference was stark now; his moods hot and cold, the life dimming and sparking back in his eyes.

 

It wasn’t so bad. It was a little familiar.

 

But then - on the job…

 

It was supposed to be a fence and an auction. Simple - for Jim, anyway. A British spy had smuggled copies of Russian tech out of the country, and Jim wanted to see which way the chips would fall. Too what extent was Mycroft still  _ loyal? _

 

The spy had made a copy of everything, thinking it might make for good insurance, or a rainy day fund, until Jim came along and convinced him to let Jim sell it at auction. Tech goes to the highest bidder, no matter the country.

 

And Jim was...pleasantly surprised with Mycroft’s cooperation. 

 

“The Saudis here are definitely out of their depth,” Jim said with a yawn and a stretch, sitting back on the hotel bed. “Though they’ve definitely got the money.”

 

“Mm, and once the Russians finish scrambling and make their offer to buy it back, we’ll make double,” Mycroft said without looking up from his laptop.

 

Jim turned so quickly he got whiplash.

 

“What?”

 

Mycroft tilted his screen - he’d - 

 

He’d  _ palmed a copy _ of the drive.

 

Jim stared, livid. Jim was running this show and he wasn’t going to let some two-bit bureaucrat waltz in and take over. Who the fuck - who the  _ fuck _ did he think he was? Fucking around behind his back with  _ his deal _ ? Did he think he could just fuck with him like this? Did he think he could just-

 

A moment later, as he had Mycroft’s laptop held over his head about to be slammed down on the nightstand, and flashbacks to that Aaron Sorkin film, he realized none of what he’d been thinking had actually stayed in his head.

 

Mycroft left the hotel shortly after that.

 

.

 

Jim sat in a decimated hotel room for - an hour? Two? He wasn’t sure how much time passed or when the hurricane had blown through but moments later, the knob on the door turned, and Mycroft Holmes strode in, eyes shining with tears.

 

“Oh, Jim.” 

 

Jim jerked back to reality and flinched, hard, as Mycroft threw himself into Jim’s arms, and the two of them sat huddled together awkwardly on the ground beside the bed. 

 

He started babbling on about apologies and “I don’t know what’s gotten into me” and “I never meant to cut you out of that deal,” and Jim tentatively reached out to place his hand on Mycroft’s head.

 

Warm.

 

As he stroked Mycroft’s hair and Mycroft babbled on, Jim knew there were no two ways about this. He was actually going to miss this. Maybe even more than a bit. Maybe even quite a lot. 

 

But if he ever wanted to have Mycroft like this again, he was going to have to give back that heart.

 

.

 

Jim spent the next day dithering about in Paris, and Mycroft asked no questions about why they were there. 

 

They had finally made it to some shady looking spot beneath a bridge when Jim’s fidgeting reached peak level and he spun on his heel to face Mycroft.

 

“I have something to give you,” he said. Mycroft just blinked back, expression open. 

 

“Alright.”

 

Jim waved, and the door to the black car that had been following them the past 43 blocks popped out. A driver stepped out with a box, and brought it over to Jim. He set it down on the ground before rushing back to his post.

 

Jim picked it up. And icebox. Then he opened it, and took out a lumpy metal object.

 

“I,” Jim started, stopped, and sighed. Sucked at his teeth with his tongue. “Look, you’re not going to want to see me after this so, just.”

 

He grabs Mycroft’s arm, holds out his hand, and plops the lump right into it.

 

“I’ll just go,” Jim said. Dropping his hands. He cleared his throat, looking anywhere but at Mycroft, and then picked up the icebox and headed toward the car.

 

Mycroft was still staring at the tinfoil-wrapped hunk of ice as Jim left, staring like he couldn’t quite remember where he’d seen this before.

 

Jim stops at the door of the car, giving him another look.

 

“Don’t think over it too long. Anthea said um. You shouldn’t be without it for too much time, or you’ll get stuck that way,” he said, and then he got into the car.

 

.

 

Monday morning rolled around and Mycroft Holmes was back at the seat of government. In his office. Surrounded by assistants and analysts and lawyers. 

 

He was again reserved, stately, and terrifyingly efficient.

 

At a quarter to noon, he pressed the intercom button on the desk phone.

 

“Anthea? Please come into my office.”

 

Then he stared at the door, prepared to meet his fate.

 

.

 

“You cursed me,” Mycroft said. 

 

Anthea sat in seat across from his desk, looking every bit the young personal assistant he thought he hired. Mycroft squinted, willing himself, perhaps, to see a glimpse of the nebulous creature he’d bumped into in the halls that day.

 

“Not really,” Anthea said with a half shrug. “I just told you something that was going to happen anyway.”

 

“And since then you’ve been, what, spying on me?” he accused.

 

“I needed a day job,” she said. Another half shrug. 

 

“Being a fairy godmother comes with a great pension plan, but I need the disposable income  _ now,”  _ she said, lifting on heeled foot. Manolo Blahnik, suede, Mycroft noted. Hm.

 

Anthea sighed, before sitting back neatly. Mycroft cleared his throat.

 

“Excuse me, fairy  _ godmother _ ?” 

 

“Mm-hm.”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to, I don’t know, keep me out of trouble then, dry clean on the spot, not  _ ruin my life??” _

 

Anthea looked a bit miffed at that.

 

“I nudged you straight into the path of true love! Few people ever encounter that throughout entire lifetimes, show some gratitude, will you?”

 

“True love! I went looney chasing Jim Moriarty across the country in an unsanctioned leave of absence, and then instead of arresting him for any of the very evident crimes committed, I went on an international crime spree with the madman!”

 

The full extent of Mycroft’s exhaustion started to seep through in his expression, in his posture.

 

“Do you know what a mess I’ve made? Good god, I’m complicit.” He buried his face in his hands.

 

Anthea got a bit shifty eyed at that; fairy godmother she might be, but seeing Mycroft suited up and so oddly vulnerable was still...difficult.

 

“Yes, well,” she crossed and uncrossed her legs, “now you understand the value of a heart, right?”

 

Mycroft slowly looked up at her, and Anthea gave him a reassuring smile. She positively  _ sparkled _ .

 

“You must be joking.”

 

.

 

James Moriarty didn’t even make a single blip on Great Britain’s radar for the next few weeks.

 

Not that Mycroft was looking. 

 

Definitely not.

 

.

 

Jim yawned, weaving through passersby on the sidewalk. A gaggle of college students were hanging outside an Apple store, and he sized them up from afar. 

 

“Hey,” he said, holding out some folded cash. “You get me the latest iPhone and there’s enough change you can get one yourself as well.”

 

The trio of students stared at him, and then the middle on snatched up the cash. 

 

“You run off with that and I’ll get you kicked out of school for cheating,” Jim called after him. “Get me the pink one.”

 

Three weeks, and this odd sense of melancholy still hadn’t left him. Like there was a shadow lurking he couldn’t shake.

 

Jim profited off people scheming against each other, but it seemed Mycroft had a talent for pitting them against each other, presence entirely undetected. Scary indeed, even moreso now that he’s seen it in action up close.

 

Jim missed him.

 

Ah, well, he thought, catching the box the college student threw at him before running off. 

 

At least he could still play with the little brother. Clever Sherlock Holmes - he’d make for a proper distraction. 

 

.

 

Mycroft winced, and brought his hand up to his jaw. 

 

John Watson was a very,  _ very _ bad liar. 

 

Wherever these missile plans were, Sherlock was not anywhere near them, not matter what his brother’s flatmate was trying to convince him of.

 

.

 

“Sir, your brother seems to be playing a dangerous game.”

 

Mycroft looked up at Anthea in the doorway, and squinted. One minute she was some terrifying otherworldly being sent here to ruin his life, the next minute she was his very competent and tight-lipped assistant. 

 

It was hard not to trust her.

 

“Is he now?”

 

“We think he’s made contact with Moriarty,” she said.

 

Mycroft’s blood ran cold, just momentarily, before heating back up to normal temperature yet again. It happened every so often these days; he was still getting used to the whole ice thing. Sherlock’d not have to deal with it for another seven years or so, if at all.

 

“How certain?”

 

“He’s been running after hostages strapped to bombs all day, but he’s just now posted a message about Carl Powers, sir. We cross referenced the term - from Sherlock’s files, to the database.”

 

Mycroft bit back a sigh, and dismissed Anthea with a nod.

 

He’d give it a few hours before he resorted to - to. 

 

.

 

“Take it,” Sherlock said, hand extended.

 

“Huh? Oh! That!” Jim said, waltzing past John and snatching up the flash drive. Didn’t quite feel as satisfying as he hoped.

 

“Boring!” He shook his head. It just wasn’t the  _ same _ . “Could’ve gotten them anywhere.”

 

It wasn’t like a normal breakup, Jim thought, there were no possessions to trash or burn. He threw the stick into the pool, and watched it flutter pathetically to the bottom of the pool.

 

“Sherlock, run!” 

 

And  _ then _ came Sherlock Holmes’s pet, grabbing him in a bid to get his friend to safety.

 

“Good!  _ Very _ good!” Oh the pair made for a lovely distraction indeed. 

 

So pleased Jim was with the distractions he had half a mind to let them leave. He wondered briefly if Sherlock had the same  _ affliction _ as his older brother, if his heart was nothing but the kind stuffed toys had too. But no, it seemed not. 

 

“Ciao, Sherlock Holmes,” he said, a bit sour about it. The more he thought about it, the worse it felt, and then Jim was turning on his heel yet again to march straight back in there and give the death orders.

 

_ “Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive, stayin' alive  _

_ Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin' alive” _

 

_ “Ugh _ . D’you mind if I get that?” Jim said, pulling out his phone without even looking.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Jim Moriarty.”

 

“Yes, of  _ course _ it is. What do you want?”

 

“Just to meet.”

 

“SAY THAT AGAIN,” he shouted into the phone. “Say that again, and know that if you’re lying to me, I will find you and I will  _ skin _ you.”

 

Mycroft held his phone away from his ear and gave it a funny look.

 

.

 

Mycroft held his umbrella overhead as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Around him, black-clad government workers moseyed around, this and that well wishes were passed, et cetera. 

 

The man beside him bumped shoulders, and Mycroft turned ever so slightly to look.

 

“This is an awfully mobster cliche, isn’t it?” Jim asks, voice low and coat collar upturned. 

 

Mycroft smirked at that.

 

“What can I say, you inspire such dramatics in me.”

 

Jim still looked wary and ill at ease, but curious nonetheless. He was going to get himself killed that way, some day.

 

Mycroft swallowed. His heart leapt, and he told it to stay still.

 

“I did a lot of. Things. The past few weeks,” he started.

 

Jim snorted. “Things. Yeah, yeah  if you want me to keep shut about your little crime spree you don't have to worry. I've put it behind me, burned your belongings, and all that.”

 

“You leave my brother out of this.”

 

“Your brother? He's his own man.  _ You  _ leave him out of this.”

 

Mycroft pursed his lips and gave Jim an angry look, which Jim returned with defiance in equal force.

 

“I've missed you, you know,” Mycroft said suddenly, deflating and taking all the tension out of the moment. 

 

Jim rocked back on his heels, needing a moment for the shock. There were a million possibilities here, from Mycroft luring him in to trying to play him to keep quiet. His ever-calculating mind immediately set out on the probabilities, before Jim threw them all away a split second later, launching himself at Mycroft, pulling him down for a kiss.

 

Mycroft flailed, momentarily off balance, and then went willingly.

 

“Psst!” an angry bureaucrat hissed from behind the two. “This is a funeral! Have some respect!”

 

They broke apart and Mycroft opened his mouth.

 

“Save it,” Jim said in a rush. “I've got a car just down there.”

 

Mycroft nodded.

 

.

 

“I'm not. I'm not doing any of those things again.”

 

Jim dragged himself up from the tangle of sheets and stared down at Mycroft.

 

“Are you insane? That was amazing. You didn't think that was amazing?”

 

“What? I meant the. Coercion, the espionage. At least not for you, I mean. I did a lot of horrible, terrible things with you and for no good reason at all. As fun as it is being with you, I won't indulge in your day job.”

 

Jim gave him a long, bewildered look.

 

“I've fucked the vocabulary out of Mycroft Holmes.”

 

Mycroft huffed.

 

“It's like you've completely forgotten how to string words together, it's extraordinary.” 

 

Mycroft rolled his eyes and pulled Jim back down.

 

“Oof.”

 

Jim contented himself letting Mycroft for a few moments, and then looked up at him with some trepidation.

 

“Are you sure I gave you back the right one?” he asked.

 

“Hm?”

 

“The heart, are you sure, when I gave it back, that it was the right one?”

 

Jim asked with such seriousness that Mycroft could only stare back with incomprehension. Did the man have a side hobby just going around, stealing people's hearts?

 

“I mean, I didn't by any chance, and I still don't understand how this works, you'll have to explain it to me later what exactly you are if not human, but I didn't get it mixed up and give you mine instead, did I?”

 

And then it finally dawned, and Mycroft laughed.

 

And laughed, and laughed, even as Jim swatted him with flushed cheeks, until his stomach hurt.

 

“No, no,” he said. “This one is definitely mine.”

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
